Carnival Attitude Thrives at High Altitude

There’s one lesson that holds true in any Olympics, summer or winter. If you want to have fun, go where the Brazilians are.

The country that hosts Carnival, the world’s greatest party, is home to the world’s most energetic and fun people.

And this year the Brazilian Winter Olympic contingent is larger than ever thanks to the addition of the Brazilian bobsled team. Meet Eric Maleson, who isn’t just the driver, he’s the president of the Brazilian Bobsled, Skeleton and Luge Assn. One of his push-athletes, Matheus Inocencio, saw snow for the first time in November. They ride in a sled known as the Frozen Banana. Their motto: Samba on Ice.

“I think we bring a whole new atmosphere to the Olympics,” Maleson says. “The Olympics need that. After Sept. 11, we need that. The world as one, you know? Get together, you know? And we get together through music, happiness, samba.”

He’s sitting in the Rodizio Grill, a Brazilian restaurant that has served as the unofficial team training table. Behind him a man beats on a drum and sings. His teammates are liable to break into dance at any moment.

The only thing that brings sadness to their faces is the timing of these Games. The opening ceremony happened to coincide with the first day of Carnival back home. But brakeman Cristiano Paes had a simple solution.

“Carnival here,” he said.

“A Brazilian is Brazilian, anywhere he is,” push-athlete Edson Bindilatti says in Portuguese, with Maleson translating. “He always brings the love for samba, the openness. We love everybody. That’s the Brazilian attitude.”

So how do you bring that attitude to the altitude and make it samba time on a frozen track 7,000 feet above sea level?

“You have to shake it,” Maleson says. “Shake the hips, the quadriceps.”

And just like that, Inocencio starts grooving, swaying his hips back and forth.

And if it’s too cold?

“I’ll make it really hot,” Bindilatti says.

Not only do Bindilatti and Inocencio provide the team’s speed, they give it a good portion of its funkiness.

They weren’t the most likely bobsled candidates. Bindilatti is afraid to ride roller coasters, but now he hurtles down the track at close to 90 mph. Inocencio, a late replacement for an injured push-athlete, had never seen snow before a training run in Calgary last November. (When asked about that experience, he wraps his arms around himself, starts shivering and says, “Muitto frio.” No translation necessary).

Maleson did some research in track and field and called them. Bindilatti is a Brazilian decathlon champion. Inocencio won the bronze in the 110-meter hurdles at the Brazilian track and field championships.

“They thought it was a joke, somebody trying to make a prank or something,” Maleson says.

But they were willing to give it a shot. It was something new.

For Maleson, bobsledding’s appeal was the speed. He had always wanted to be a Formula One race car driver. But that’s a sport for millionaires, requiring serious sponsorship. Maleson bought his first bobsled for $1,700 in 1994.

Except he neglected to tell his girlfriend, Lisa Papandrea. They were living in Massachusetts, where they met while Maleson attended language school in Boston.

“I had to go out one morning, open the garage door and there was this big, obnoxious yellow thing in there,” Papandrea says.

“I told her that was my new toy,” Maleson says.

A bobsled. For a guy who wiped out and totaled his car the first time he tried to drive in New England’s snow.

“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, sure. You’re gonna be a great bobsledder,’” Papandrea says.

But Maleson was a natural. The first time he tried driving a sled, at the old Olympic course in Lake Placid, he didn’t crash. And he was hooked.

“It was like I was driving a race car,” he says.

After two years he got his super license, which allowed him to compete internationally. Only one problem: He was a Brazilian citizen, and Brazil did not have a federation affiliated with the national Olympic committee. That meant he couldn’t compete for any country.

His solution: form his own federation. The accreditation process was a bureaucratic procedure Papandrea calls “a six-year nightmare.”

They had limited funding from working part-time jobs. Papandrea cleaned out the closets and held yard sales to raise cash. She learned just how long she could go without paying utility bills before the power got cut off. Her sister sent them boxes of essentials such as toothbrushes and toilet paper. When they were given a new sled by the Brazilian Olympic Committee through an International Olympic Committee program, they sold the old sled on EBay for $5,000. (“I liked the sled when I was selling it for five grand,” she says.)

And after all that, it came down to three races in Lake Placid last December to qualify for the Olympics. Bobsledders must earn 60 points in five competitions on three tracks over two seasons. The Brazilians needed 44 points before the last two days of racing. They crashed in the first race. In the next race, they finished third out of eight teams. And in the final race, they made the cutoff by 0.03 of a second.

No group has had more fun at these Olympics than the Brazilians. Bindilatti and Inocencio grin, give thumbs-up signs and say “Brasssiiil” every time they see a camera. They broke out into “La Bomba,” a popular Carnival dance, in the middle of a restaurant. Bindi-

latti had the flags of different nations painted on his nails at the beauty salon in the Olympic village, then shoved his hand in the face of Prince Albert of Monaco to show them off.

Oh, there’s still love for the Jamaican bobsled team, but this year’s two-man team was a little more serious than the original cool runners in 1988. Their driver, Winston Watt, is a physical fitness instructor for the army. The brakeman, Lascelles Brown, said: “We come to do the bobsled. After bobsled, then we party.”

There’s a little something waiting for Maleson when his two days of competition that start today are finished. He and Papandrea will get married at the Olympic village.

Love in the air, samba on ice. It’s all good. Or, as the Brazilians would say, Muitto Bom.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com